Midsommar

It’s been awhile since I’ve watched a movie that really got me thinking, but I can assure you that Midsommar was a movie that did just that.

I will start off this blog by saying that there may be some spoilers in this post that I will be unable to hold, as I want to get a lot of my thoughts out. So if you haven’t yet seen the movie, and are planning on doing so, please take caution as to what you are about to read.

Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster, is a movie about a group of friends, specifically couple Dani and Christian, who go to Sweden to visit a friend’s home town to partake in their Midsummer festival adventures.

The movie has an overall dark and sad tone, as even the first five minutes of the movie shows Dani, played by Florence Pugh, dealing with both relationship and family struggles.

Just minutes into the movie, Dani’s sister commits suicide and kills their parents, leaving Dani an absolute emotional wreck. She leans on Christian, played by Jack Reynor, to help her, but with the already failing relationship, he really isn’t emotionally there to support her.

The movie then goes a few days later into Christian and his friends talking about a trip to Sweden at a party in front of Dani in order to see their friend Pelle’s hometown traditions for a Midsummer Festival. Dani, still shaken up from the death of her entire family, is shocked to hear that Christian was thinking of going away for so long, and it ends up becoming a trip in which she is invited.

Still trying to manage her losses, Dani reluctantly goes on the trip along with the group of friends and that’s where the chaos begins. The small hometown that seemed all magical and fairytale like, turned into a psychedelic nightmare, but of course, it was recognized as that at first.

The small Swedish community in the middle of nowhere was a cult, which led to the dramatic and horrifying next two hours of the movie.

If you are someone easily grossed out by violence and graphic scenes, this movie isn’t for you. There are parts that should not be seen by children, or even some teens and young adults, so please look up what the movie entails prior to watching it, as it is definitely an adult, rated R movie. Specifically rated R for “disturbing ritualistic violence and graphic nudity”.

Overall, I highly recommend watching this movie if you are interested in constant twists and unexpected events. Also, Aster’s use of foreshadowing in this movie was done like no other feature film that I had seen before, which was a very cool and creative thing to do in a movie such as this.